A Crazy October!

The month of October originally started out pretty much as any other, it is Hokie (Virginia Tech) football season, and we are season ticket holders, so we had a plan. We were to have 2 games on back-to-back weekends, October 3rd and the 9th. We always tailgate and try to have at least 2 meals at the tailgate on game day. 

Even Lily is a Hokie!

Joseph, our littlest Hokie

I decided I would have Hubby leave me there after the first game, I would look after Joseph and help with the cooking etc. for the week and go back home with Hubby the next week, after the game....and did I mention, the 3rd was my birthday, so I was really looking forward to having a 'birthday week' with the kids!

Well Mother Nature did not cooperate, we got a blast of N'oreaster Storms that rolled in, so we had to adjust our plans! Hubby and I have spent many games in the rain, and after 12 seasons, we decided that was no longer fun for us.  So we stayed home for my Birthday, watched the game on TV from the couch. Just before the game started, we got a call from Carol, the lady that looks after our house in Ft. Myers.  She had some bad news. We had water in our house, upstairs AND downstairs! They too had had many storms, and Carol had found water standing in our upstairs bathroom, and 'bubble things' (she called them) over our kitchen bar.  She and the neighbor were working with our HOA down there to find out what happened. They said we didn't need to come down, they were working it and would stay in touch, but they sent us some pics...

See the bubbles of water in the ceiling?? 

Happy Birthday to me, right?? :(

So, I headed to Christiansburg on the 4th for the week, with plans to meet with Hubby on the 9th for that game. I had a great week with Joseph and he and his Mom and Dad gave me the BEST birthday gift!!...and took me out to dinner too!! Talk about feeling special!!

How awesome is this, it is a canvas they had it customized with a coral background to perfectly match our Florida home!! The card was customized too!!

We had a great week, Joseph had just turned 7 months old and is such a joy, I think he learns so much everyday!

After a ride with Mommy down the steps!

I have got to learn to keep my mouth closed for these selfies!! :)

"Gammaw, come get me out of jail!!"

Such a Happy Boy! Daddy is feeding him homemade babyfood...Butternut squash!

Here is Joseph doing his 'Army crawl'.  He goes back and forth between this and a crawl on 'all fours', mostly he likes to crawl to something, then stand up and walk!! Such a big boy!! <3

As the next weekend approached, so did the storms....Hubby ended up staying home, and not coming for the game....we also watched this one from the couch....and could hear the fireworks at the game outside! 

During the week, Hubby continued talking with the folks in Florida, and it looked like we had to head down to assess the damage, find the source, and get some repairs done! I drove home on Sunday morning (about 300 miles), unpacked, did laundry and repacked and early Monday (Oct 12) we left for Florida! 

I hadn't been able to go since April, and Hubby had been twice, so working or not, I was really looking forward to the trip to our second home!  :)

So stay tuned .... I did FiNALLY make it to the beach!!

"Decorating" in Florida-- Long distance!!

“If you wait until you have enough money to decorate and make your home your own, it will never happen. If you wait until you can afford to buy everything new, you are missing the point. It is the old, the new, the hand-me-down, the collected, the worn but loved things in your home that make it your own.” Stacy Risenmay

I am constantly thinking about our house in Ft. Myers, even when we are not there! Thinking about what we will take next trip, and we usually have quite a few things we take down when we go.  I bought some new towels for all 3 bathrooms, of course in keeping with the "beachy" theme! These have got Sea Stars on them in a neutral tan and ivory, and some plain tan so it won't be too busy...and I can mix and match.  

I also wanted to take down the chairs to go with the table I refinished and took down a couple of trips back. The dining set was my parents that they bought each other for their first anniversary....which would have been January 1955!! If you remember I went from the 'blonde' that they had to walnut. I decided I wanted to cover the seats to match the 'decor' of our home in Florida and found that finding fabric these days is pretty difficult! When you do find something it is quite expensive!! I was wandering around in a fabric store and this fabric 'jumped' out at me, it was on clearance, and it is not normally my sort of thing!! It looks like tapestry, and I wasn't sure if there was enough for 6 cushions, so I bought all they had, and picked out a second choice, just in case.  The colors of the 'tapestry' were perfect with the other things in our room, and I had a pillow from there to compare colors.

The 'Tapestry' material

With the pillow....colors aren't showing up to well....they are 'teals' or dark aqua

This is the 'second choice' material, it has a silver highlight of flowers, they don't show up as bright in real life, it kind of looks like a batik material, couldn't get a true picture of it. It is also dark teal or aqua and it blend well with the tapestry.

I tried to take pics from several angles to show the colors, but didn't ever get a good one, just remember the teal shows up more than the highlight! Both materials go well with the pillow(s).

It turns out I had just enough of the tapestry for 6 cushions!!! Woohoo!!

I am not sure how well this material will hold up, but I am certain it will look awesome in our house!! Now all I have to do is cut it, and not make a mistake!!! This step took me a little while!!

First one done!!! Looks awesome....right??? I don't normally like tapestry type material, but this I did, kinda reminds me of "Old Florida" how appropriate is that since it is an "Old" table that has been redone!!

Second done!

All done!! For now we will only have 5 chairs....for some reason, don't remember why, I only refinished 5....so I have the material saved for the sixth!!! 

Now all I need to do is 'install' them onto the chairs, and load them up and take them down to our house and see how they look!! Hmmmm maybe a trip is in our near future!!! :D

.....to be continued!!

::Hugs::

Cheri